Casimir and Cheryl

Arabic translation: كازِمِير و شَـرِل

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My husband specializes in Middle Eastern studies amongst his history studies and is enthralled with the Arabic language. I am currently making a piece of artwork as a surprise gift in which i'd like to include our names together written in Arabic. I would be extremely grateful if you could assist me in this very personal task. Thank you, Cheryl.

Your name is somewhat tricky, because of its short vowels (at least in the standard American pronunciation). Therefore, if you want the Arabic writing to preserve the same vowel quality and the same rapid rhythm, you should avoid the temptation to represent all vowels in letters. Vowel letters in Arabic only represent long vowels, as in Dan, Jean, or Boon. Short vowels, as in Cheryl, Merril, Doug, Bill, or Fritz, are represented by diacritical signs, little strokes above and below the actual letters.

I have indicated these above, but how they are going to appear on your computer screen is something that I cannot predict. On my two computers, The font on the KudoZ page of ProZ.com is far too small to facilitate visualization of such details. If your computer is set up like mine, you may want to enlarge the font for better visual discernment (in MS Internet Explorer 5, go to View, Text Size).

An alternative is to copy the text and paste it in a Word 2000 document, change the font to Traditional Arabic, then enlarge it to your heart's content (Open MS Word before you attempt the copy-paste maneuver).

Your name is somewhat tricky, because of its short vowels (at least in the standard American pronunciation). Therefore, if you want the Arabic writing to preserve the same vowel quality and the same rapid rhythm, you should avoid the temptation to represent all vowels in letters. Vowel letters in Arabic only represent long vowels, as in Dan, Jean, or Boon. Short vowels, as in Cheryl, Merril, Doug, Bill, or Fritz, are represented by diacritical signs, little strokes above and below the actual letters.

I have indicated these above, but how they are going to appear on your computer screen is something that I cannot predict. On my two computers, The font on the KudoZ page of ProZ.com is far too small to facilitate visualization of such details. If your computer is set up like mine, you may want to enlarge the font for better visual discernment (in MS Internet Explorer 5, go to View, Text Size).

An alternative is to copy the text and paste it in a Word 2000 document, change the font to Traditional Arabic, then enlarge it to your heart's content (Open MS Word before you attempt the copy-paste maneuver).